Sunday, 25 March 2012

Thursday, 8 March 2012

Colours of the Capital Garden, disseminated with permission as a tribute to ‘The Monument Project’ by Chris Meigh Andrews, currently Professor of Electronic & Digital Art at UCLan.I discovered ‘The Monument Project’ during my research into material associated with ‘Colours of the Capital Garden’ and found that the moving images so beautifully depicted the capital city of London as it changed over time. As the movie had no sound, I approached Professor Meigh Andrews for permission to put music to the project as a tribute and to highlight the synchronicity of the two pieces.

The installation provides a live stream of continually modified time-lapse images 24 hours a day, 7 days per week via a video screen display which is sited on the piazza near the base of the Monument.

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

My first attempt at using screen flow to demonstrate my creative process, hopefully I will improve on this in time. This is a short clip of score and audio of 'The Russian Girl' for Solo Baritone Voice and Piano.

It seems strange that I have only just now
tackled with this ambiguity. It seems the nature of my practice does not
concern creating but immediately documenting my creative ideas as accurately as
possible so that they may be interpreted/ brought to life in the by the
performance or production of others. The musical score works as a widely
recognised and accurate means of portraying the detail and conveyance of a
composer’s work.

However, if we consider documentation to be
secondary to practice; as a byproduct or after thought reflecting over the use
of creative abilities that are known to us tacitly, in this instance where is
the practical work.

‘the relationship between documentation and work
entwined, mutually compromised, mutually generative, mutually reflective.
Increasingly it is no longer accurate to think about the difficulty of reading
the documentation without witnessing the work, but equally, it is difficult to
think of experiencing the work without knowledge of the documentation: each is
only half the picture.’

Reason (2011) p. 169

In this quotation Reason describes the iterative
nature of this binary relationship. Although I am always able to further
document the process of my work in a reflective manner, what I take from that
reflection then informs a practice that is based around a specific set and
highly traditional syntax with certain rules and constraints.

Undoubtedly the musical ear has certain
phenomenological insights into sonic beauty that even the most sophisticated
scores cannot represent. However this is where the process begins and ends for
me.

Although the notion of performance is implicit
to the process of score writing there is no necessity for my involvement after
the fact of completion.

Is it possible that technology has significantly
stunted my artistic ambition?

By relying on score
writing software as a means executing my creative process have I ultimately created
an archive instead of a portfolio?

Sunday, 12 February 2012

Smith and Dean’s writing here firstly explains that they
intend to convey the importance of creative practices in the University
environment in regards to research practices.

Over the past 20 years the notion that the creative arts are
now an accepted academic endeavour with Higher Education has been growing
rapidly also illuminating that these practices bring a great opportunity for
ground breaking research.

This Practice-led-Research or Research-led-Practice is
proving to alter the way we practically and conceptually engage with creative
topics and is essentially reshaping the Higher education system showing us that
there is in fact a scientific nature to the way we make and think about the
arts.

Bi-Directional
Focus

Dean and Smith describe this relationship as a
bi-directional focus where both of these seemingly binary elements are in
direct support of each other. This gives the potential for discovering a
multitude of directions in academic research as well as making a positive
impact over creative practice; hence why they do not specify inclination over
the two phrases. It is this interwoven relationship of two contrasting process
that they describe as an iteractive cyclic web.

Dean & Smith’s intention was to analyse this
relationship in its current and past state discussing issues arising over
different art disciplines in context with the political structure of the ever changing
higher education institution that is the basis and authority for this research’s
existence. This inspired their attempt to answer the broader question of what
knowledge is in terms of how we understand creative process.

Terminology

The notion of practice-led-research has many different
terminologies as it encumbers values from different ends of the spectrum of
academic although all these terminologies are defined as the same point

‘the way in which practice can result in
research insights, such as those that arise out of making a creative work
and/or in the documentation and theorisation of that work.’

Smith & Dean (2009) p. 2

Dean & Smith want us to realise that academic writing
can lead to creative functions and that the conceptual knowledge that exists in
our making is already out there we just have not analysed it in a conscious
manner yet.

The previous traditions of higher education gave great
preference to work in the fields of humanities, theory, criticism and history
over any kind of creative based subject, even English literature something as
intrinsically founded in our culture. Some 30 years later and we find that
creative practitioners have coin this phrases encouraging the system to
acknowledge the insights derived from practices as bases for research regarded
as highly as other research methods.

The Conundrum

Although, one might encounter immediate problems when
engaging with the idea of research in this way as its meaning is founded in the
definition of knowledge. Academia for many years had implicit definitions about
the nature knowledge; that it is tangible and a solely conscious activity; it
is transferable through language or communication and is congruent with that of
its origin. Some find the notion of knowledge or meaning being conveyed through
artistic practice to be a problematic idea.

Conventional knowledge in academic appreciation is
recognised as either verbal or numerical standards whereas most of art
especially music which is purely sonic and although conveys some tangible
values, emotions and associations it cannot convey it’s phenomenological worth
as a mathematical accuracy even though we cannot deny that knowledge is used to
create and perform it.

The concept of knowledge is unstable when regarded in terms
of a post modernistic perspective; it essentially denies knowledge as absolute
truth and undermines the authority of scientific fact.

Research

In consideration of this, research is a process that constitutes
primary knowledge that can be observed in many different lights, and as we
analyse this we can see how different interpretations overlap making it
ambiguous whether there is a particular way of viewing. These observations
result in varying levels of stability and precision and when correlated with traditional
quantitative and qualitative conceptual models this works to greater affect.

Dean & Smith then go on to explain a bit about
differences in qualitative research; a reflexive approach keeping the researcher
fairly close to the material and participants, an example of this being
anthropology and quantitative research which mathematically treats the material
and participants under particular conditions. Both have their strengths and weakness
for gathering information and are two of many different approaches.

Although the relationship that links these approaches to
practice-led-research is a complex they are tools to keep us better informed as
practitioners to innovative processes and how we might document this in
academic theory. Despite its complexities practice-led-research is a highly
informed and unique way of conducting research.

Both I and Liam Walsh are currently working at York St John University alongside Dr. Liz Mellor as research assistants in a continuation of very exiting research into Music Composition as a cognitive creative process and its support of Music Education. The project is called iCompose and has strong ties to the Paynter Project; an outreaching appreciation for innovative and effective methods in Music Education.

Tuesday, 7 February 2012

I recently entered an application for the Lancashire Sinfonietta's annual award for young composers of the North West of England. The prize consists of a year-long residency, co-hosted byLive at LICA(Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts) and has already given a number of composers valuable experience and contacts to help launch their careers.

For my application I have entered 3 pieces, "Animus" (string orchestra), "Cold Fusion" (piano) are available on my Facebook and Souncloud and Finally "Chasm" hopefully soon to be performed by the Ligeti string quartet.

The award will be announced in late March and the winner will begin a residency working with the chamber Orchestra.